Yossarian said:

    I think people of Asian or American Indian ancestry have lower amounts of an enzyme that is involved in ethanol metabolism.  In the liver, ethanol is oxidized to form acetaldehyde, which gives you a hangover.  A second oxidation step converts acetaldehyde into acetic acid.

    This process takes place while you are drinking. If it didn't, your body would acummulate alcohol at a much faster rate.  This is why some people with liver problems get drunk very easily.

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You are correct.  Many persons of asian decent are deficient in the alcohol dehydrogenase enzyme, resulting in a build up of the toxic acetaldehyde which is responsible for the flushing of their face and feeling sick sooner than those of us who can break that shit down with a quickness.

ummikko said:

Yep, that's how it goes. Acetaldehyde is converted to acetic acid by the enzyme acetaldehyde dehydrogenase. Some people have an abnormal gene for this enzyme, so they metabolize acetaldehyde more slowly. This means that they accumulate acetaldehyde if they drink much alcohol, so they get a sort of hangover-like feeling(poisoning) quite quickly. This gene is rare in western people, but about half of the people in China and Japan have it.

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filthysock said:

Kind of off-topic but do you get a hold of pot, shrooms and the like in Japan?

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With great difficulty...  the only pot I've seen in 18 months is about 1/4 gram my mate foung in Kyoto and gave to me...  Shrooms grow here in the Summer (P.Argentipes).

I drink lots of alcohol whenever we have a party and I have been making a nuisance of myself at various ethnobotanical websites...

(Got some MJ seeds germinating, now, though... )

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I don't know enough about genetics to give you advice on this...sorry. The gene that is responsible for the enzyme is well known though, so I think it could be tested.

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